Payback
by Oi-Watch-It-Spaceman
Summary: After she missed a year, Rose wants to make up for it by having Christmas in the TARDIS. The Doctor, however, isn't going to go domestic without a fight. Ninth DoctorxRose, one shot.


**Merry Christmas and a happy new year! Have some NinexRose fluff from me :)**

"Rose, for the last time, there isn't a Christmas in the TARDIS! We can go anywhere we like, any Christmas in the universe, I took you to Christmas when you first came aboard – we do _not _need a tree!"

Rose looked over at the Doctor. He was leaning against one of the columns, arms folded, doing that glowering thing he normally reserved for people who were threatening him/domestic situations.

"Alright then Scrooge, you can stay over there and ruin Christmas, or you can help me put up the decorations. Either way, you can stop glaring at me 'cause it's not doing anything." Strictly speaking, that last remark wasn't quite true. In fact, Rose was ridiculously aware of the Doctor's eyes on her, sensing him watching her every movement from the other side of the room. It was giving her a strange, tingling feeling in her stomach. A nice feeling though. Maybe they should have Christmas more often, if the Doctor was going to smoulder (that really was the best description of his facial expression Rose could come up with) at her from across the room.

The Doctor shifted, tilting his head to the side in a mockery of consideration before shaking his head. "I think I'll pass, thanks." However, he couldn't seem to prevent a small smile crossing his face at her obvious enthusiasm. Rose noted this with a smug grin, wrapping a piece of tinsel around her neck and tossing the end dramatically over her shoulder before carrying on arranging multi-coloured lights on the synthetic tree branches.

She had wanted a real tree, but Rose supposed that even the TARDIS couldn't work miracles in that department. Despite the fake tree, the TARDIS had provided everything that she would need to decorate the console room lavishly, leading her to suspect that the TARDIS wanted to have some fun with the Doctor, and was equipping Rose with decorations for her own amusement as well as Rose's.

"When you took me back home last time, I'd missed a year of my life." The Doctor raised an eyebrow, and Rose could tell he was making an effort not to look guilty. "Which means that I missed Christmas last year. And I want it back. So I'll decorate, you can stand there and be all huffy about me "domesticating" your TARDIS, and we'll call it even."

He just huffed and looked at something on the screen, so Rose continued to hang baubles and drape tinsel and hum Christmas songs, partly doing it just to annoy him now.

He was watching her again, she could just tell. Rose was just leaning up to put the star on the top of the tree when she was certain she heard him laughing under his breath.

The Doctor slammed a lever and the TARDIS tilted to the side – not too dramatically, just enough for Rose's Christmas tree to go sliding across the floor and crash into the nearest column. At least, that's what he intended to happen.

"Ha _ha_!" Rose laughed triumphantly, pointing an accusatory finger at the Doctor. "I knew you'd try that just to get at me. It's bolted to the floor! And you say _you're _the genius."

The Doctor looked down at the console, face hidden from view, and for a few moments Rose wondered whether he was actually angry with her for having foiled his plan. It took her a few seconds to notice his shoulders shaking. He looked up, face stretched into an enormous grin, letting out a bellow of laughter that echoed around the room. Rose began to laugh too, holding the console for support and clutching at the Doctor's leather clad arm with her other hand. He gripped her arm, fingers curling into her jacket securely.

"Come on, then, let's go somewhere." He (regretfully) let go of Rose's arm and began to push levers on the console.

"Somewhere Christmassy?" Rose inquired casually, leaning on the console and staring at the Doctor. He didn't answer, choosing instead to look up at her with a slow grin that ever so slightly made her insides melt like ice-cream lying in the sun.

The TARDIS landed, juddering to a halt and causing a loud tinkling as the bells on the Christmas tree made a jangle of festive noise.

Rose stood on the grating, feet fidgety and stomach churning. This bit never got old. The bit where they had landed somewhere and, just beyond that door, there could be absolutely anything outside. She could so this forever.

Unable to stop herself for a single second longer, Rose practically ran to the door, ignoring the Doctor looking at her like she was a small child getting overexcited in a sweet shop. She yanked the door open, stepping outside into blinding sunlight.

They were on a beach.

To be fair to the Doctor, it was a magnificent beach. Stretching for miles into the distance, not another person in sight, green sky and blue seaweed and a smell in the air that Rose was almost certain smelt like pear drops. Magnificent, it had to be said, but Rose was done being fair to the Doctor. She whipped round to face him, standing outside the TARDIS looking so smug it was unbearable.

"Payback," he answered simply before Rose had even opened her mouth. She sighed, blowing upwards and ruffling her hair. So this was what she got for trying to bring Christmas into the TARDIS. Well fine. She wasn't going to let _him _ruin this for her.

Wandering across the sand, which felt strangely spongier than she was used to, Rose reflected that it wasn't too hot or too cold here, but the perfect temperature. If it hadn't been a way for the Doctor to get back at her for the decorations, they would probably have had a fantastic day, building sandcastles and discovering new wildlife. She glanced round at the Doctor. He was surveying the scenery, facing away from her with his hands in his pockets. A wonderful, awful idea crossed her mind.

Rose scooped up a handful of slightly wet sand, moulding it between her fingers until she had a ball, which she chucked unceremoniously at the Doctor's back. It hit his leather jacket and exploded, showering him all over with clumps of damp sand. Some of it had surely gone down the back of his jumper. He span around, shock and confusion on his face, to find and hysterical Rose laughing so hard that she was kneeling on the sand, unable to stay on her feet.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you not to throw sand at people?" he asked her completely seriously, before bending down quicker than blinking and lobbing a sand ball at her. Rose tried to roll out of the way, but her reflexes were nothing on the Doctor's and she found herself covered in damp grains of sand.

The fight was short but hilarious, the highlight being when the Doctor narrowly dodged one of Rose's throws with such a balletic leap that she howled with laughter, lying on the sand thinking that the sandball she received to the ribs a few seconds later was definitely worth having that image of the Doctor ingrained in her memory.

Afterwards, despite having had enormous amount of fun of the sort she could only have with the Doctor, Rose tried to convince herself that it was sort of Christmassy, basically a snowball fight without the snow. She failed miserably.

"I don't know what Christmas is like for you, but in London, England, Earth that is not it."

The Doctor took hold of her hand and smiled. "I thought you wanted to explore the rest of the universe. I'll have you know that right here, right now, it is Christmas day 200,000 years in your future."

Rose scowled, holding onto his hand just the same.

They stepped back into the TARDIS, Rose acutely aware of all the sand that was clinging to her slightly damp hair. She was about to go and have a shower to get rid of it when she noticed the lights. In their absence, the TARDIS seemed to have decided that Rose's decorating was not up to standard, and had wrapped every column in Christmas lights, as well as covering the console and dangling baubles from the ceiling. Rose's face was an ecstatic grin, which was only made wider when she caught sight of the Doctor's decidedly not amused expression.

"Oh, stop being such a Grinch," she told him sternly, pulling him across to the console and staring around in wonder. The lights sparkled like a thousand multicoloured stars, the soft glow of the TARDIS glancing off the baubles and casting a long shadow of the Christmas tree against the wall.

"It's beautiful," Rose breathed softly. The air smelled of Christmas, spices and pine needles, mixed with the particular smell of the TARDIS that she could not describe.

She turned towards the Doctor and was surprised to find him standing so close to her. Her breathing sounded ten times louder than normal, and she could hear her heartbeat hammering in her ears.

He placed his hands carefully on her shoulders, and she froze, not daring to move. "Merry Christmas, Rose," he said, before leaning down and gently kissing her. It was soft and quick and gentle, and it wasn't until he had pulled away that Rose realised her eyes were still closed and she had not moved. She quickly pushed past the shock and opened them, seeing the Doctor smiling down at her with a look she had never seen before on his face (as a matter of fact he wore that look lot, normally whilst watching Rose when she wasn't looking.)

"Thanks."

The Doctor shrugged. "It's Christmas."

"Oi, you said that there was no Christmas in the TARDIS!"

He scratched his head thoughtfully. "Inside the TARDIS, yes, but I'm sure we can have some sort of Christmas somewhere outside, if you really want to."

Rose, head still spinning from the kiss (_what did it mean, did it mean anything, what should she do?) _took a second to grasp what he was telling her. "You mean you'll actually take me somewhere Christmassy? Properly Christmassy?"

"I promise, this time I will give you the best Christmas you've ever had." Just at that moment – Rose wondered if he had planned it – the TARDIS juddered to a halt.

"Yes!" She sprinted to the door and wrenched it open, bursting out into a completely new world. She was met by a wall of sweltering heat. He had purposefully landed the TARDIS had landed on the beach. Again.

"_Doctor!_"

Rose narrowed her eyes fiercely as the Doctor poked his head out of the TARDIS, innocent as a summer sky.

"Oops."

**Hope you enjoyed it, review if you want, my tumblr is greatbigouterspacedunce :)**


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